Liza's eating habits

[BettaMomma]

The oddest thing happened just a little bit ago.
I got home from PetWorld with a few more things to try with Liza.

So far, she's turned up her nose to pellets, freeze dried bloodworms and daphnia.
She'll only eat peas (LOVES them).
Tonight, I dropped in some brine shrimp - turned up her nose. But then again, so did all the rest of my fish so I GUESS I can't blame her.

Then we tried the frozen bloodworms.
She ate one and was much-a-crunching away on it and she CHOKED. She was coughing and flittering all over, then she fell to the bottom. I was horrified - she suddenly darted up to the top and sort of coughed, and out came the yucky chewed up bloodworm.

I'm afraid to give her anything else.
Could this be a fluke?
Does she maybe not know how to eat stuff other than squishy peas? Aren't bloodworms squishy?
I'm at a loss of what to do here...

 

[Kiarra]

Jeez, the poor baby!

Maybe you should start mashing up her food for her....

How tiny is Liza? I've had some Bettas that I got very, very small, and I literally powdered their food for them and fed it to them that way. I made a mixture of powdered flakes, freeze-dried bloodworms, freeze-dried tubifex worms, and freeze-dried brine shrimp, and completely pulverized EVERYTHING until it was just a very fine powder and fed them that way. It was the only thing I could get them to eat. I did it originally for Snow White (Snow for short), who was only an inch long when I got her, and couldn't eat anything bigger, and then for Flynn and Bard, who were less than an 1 1/2 inches when I bought them. So maybe try pulverising her food for her. If it's frozen, thaw it out and mash it up for her, until it's the consistency of a pea, if at all possible.

 

[BettaMomma]

She is VERY tiny.
And not growing at all
All my other girls are now double her size, and I"ve only had them a couple of weeks. I would say she's not much bigger than an inch long, including her tail.
The poor little thing - she still swims around like she's feeling fine and swims around looking for stuff to pick off the bottom. Then she stares at it, and tries to pick it up and then spits it out, unless it's a pea.

I'll try mashing things up, but the brine shrimp was powdery and she wouldn't even try it. The blood worms are... well just COMPLETELY disgusting. BLECKY.

 

[Kiarra]

I know how disgusting it can all be. I took a razor blade to a bunch of blackworms until they were completely pulverised...disgusting, disgusting, disgusting. But if it gets her to eat something (and not choke on it, the poor girl!), then it'll be worth it, right?

 

[BettaMomma]

Yes, very true.
I will see waht I can do.
I'm off to cook a few peas again so she can have something to eat tonight.
I also have to give her a water change.
those darn little 1/2 gallon hospital tanks are kind of a drag as far as the daily water changings go!

 

[BettaMomma]

Um, this is odd.
When I gave her the bloodworms earlier, a bunch of them settled onto the bottom. When I just went back to the kitchen to change out her water, she was "stalking and eating" all the worms off the bottom of the tank, and her little belly is kinda fat
Maybe she's gonna do okay with the worms after all!
At least that's a step in the right direction - peas and worms.
Now we just gotta get her onto pellets and we'll be in business.
Whew - I'm going to be keeping an eye on her for choking on them, though - i'm not sure how to do the heimlich maneuver on a fish, but....

 

[Kiarra]

Awesome! Congrats on finding something she eats! Actually, having her eating bloodworms and peas isn't that bad a diet, if you don't mind fixing it for her. She gets her protein from the bloodworms, and her fiber from the peas. This is actually a diet she can survive on. The main dietary concern before was that she wasn't getting any protein, and, since Bettas are carnivores, protein is something they can't live without. But now that she's eating bloodworms, she has a source of protein. For a normal Betta, just eating bloodworms wouldn't be very healthy, because they would have a tendency to get a little constipated, but the peas are a natural laxative, so that solves that problem. Variety is still better, but this is a very good start.

 

[BettaMomma]

OH great!!!
That's fabulous news.
I am still going to try to stuff the pea w/ a crushed pellet and see how we do.
She is a very smart fish, tho - she may be on to me as soon as it hits the water.
I just took some pics - loading them as we speak.
Be back in a few to post!

 

[BettaMomma]

Here she is!
(notice her green belly in these pics - she'd just had peas! hee hee)

Yeah, I know her fins are really ratty.
BUT.. they're growing back from what they were. The bottom one was almost gone when I took her out!

 

[Kiarra]

She is one VERY cute little pea-eater. She looks like, well, several of mine.

 

[BettaMomma]

I'm getting REALLY attached to her.
She's going to live on one of my co-worker's desks as soon as she's healthy enough to go.
I get to visit her every day! It's gonna be kinda tough to hand her over.

 

[Kiarra]

At least you'll get to see her everyday. And bring her yummy peas so she'll like you better than the coworker.

 

[BettaMomma]

Good news to post about little Liza.
Here she is back in the tank with everyone again:

and here she is next to Cloey:

They were both the same size when I got them.
She's obviously been slow in growing, but hopefully now she'll do some catching up.
She still eats only bloodworms and peas, but everyone else in the tank eats them now too, so it's not hard to get her fed in there.

 

[newfishies]

hey that's great! i'm glad that she got to rejoin the girls! was there any squabbling? i have found about 4 different spots i can sneek food into for the shy girls and then i feed the more dominant ones in the front through the hood!

 

[BettaMomma]

Not much at all really....
I took them all out and put them into a bucket for a few minutes, then released Liza into the tank, then put all the rest of them back in with the least aggressive ones going in first, and nobody even noticed her, really. It was just like old times. She's swimming along with the bunch like she was never gone. She was flaring her tiny little flare at them when she first got into the tank, but they just ignored her and swam right on by so she's given up on that for now... It was actually very funny. The teeny weeny was flaring at the big hulking girls who used to harrass the heck out of her. I'm SO very glad because now I don't have to change out her little tank every single night.

whew.